Greed Before All Else
by giveupthecake
Summary: A re-imagining of Naruto, but where the world is more cruel to him, but he maintains his cheer. Where he has Kakuzu's power, but is not overpowered. Where accidents can and will happen, most likely to Naruto. Rated M for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**This is going to be written at a semi slow pace. I wanted a fanfiction where Naruto had a different set of powers than in cannon, but I still want him to remain in character. I couldn't find a fanfiction like that so I decided that I would go and write my own. I took what I think is one of the most awesome kinjutsu of all time, and decided to give it to Naruto. Also, I want people to freakin realize that Naruto is being abused by the villagers! Unfortunately, no one will notice until much later in the story. Starts at the sealing of the kyuubi. (Hoped I spelt that right.). Have fun.**

**I do not own Naruto.**

XoXoXoX

The forests of Konoha weren't Kakuzu's favorite place in the world. The trees always reminded him of the hidden village's first Hokage, and when he thought of the first Hokage, Kakuzu remembered the ass beating that was giving to him and the 3 year long stint in prison he did in his own village before he rediscovered a lost kinjutsu and killed the villiage hidden behind the waterfall's idiotic council.

The bounty hunter pushed these thoughts for he very back of his mind howeve and focused on following the suna nuke-nin's trail. Money meant everything to Kakuzu. Why shouldn't it. His life was originally ruined by him trying to get more money, all he had left to his existence was to gain ungodly amounts of cash so he could show the world how everything did run on money.

That was neither here nor there however and Kakuzu snapped himself out of it and continued following the nuke-nin's trail. This specific target was listed in the Bingo Book as being a master of Wind elemental manipulation, so Kakuzu was taking any chances. He had already separated his earth heart from his body and had it moving parallel to him. When he discovered the target, he and his automaton would move in a pincer formation to eliminate his foe. It was overkill, as Kakuzu didn't need to use the puppet to capture the ninja, but Kakuzu was not one for overestimating his targets and he perfered to use caution when bounty hunting.

He was approaching a clearing and his near century of experience told him that there was an ambush waiting for him. Despite that, Kakuzu felt that the ninja would not pose a threat to him with his first attack and entered the clearing. Instead of being pelted with a rain of kunai like he expected, his prey dropped out of a tree across from him and looked him square in the eye whilst taking a taijutsu stance. No words were spoken and Kakuzu silently applauded the ninja for having the guts to face a foe like himself and then he instructed the earth heart to attack the wind user head on.

The ninja was obviously surprised by the appearance of the mass of threads charging torwards him, but he remained silent and started forming hand seals while taking a deep breath.

Kakuzu knew that wind jutsus would not effect the earth heart and was curious to see what jutsu the ninja would use. The former suna-nin surprised Kakuzu and threw a kunai at the charging threads. Kakuzu was not worried however… up until the point where the kunai went through the jiongu and he felt his connection with the earth heart disappear. The nuke-nin then made a final set of hand signs and let out the breath he had been holding in up till then.

A large gust of wind escaped from his lips, tearing apart all of the trees around Kakuzu and would've sent the bounty hunter flying if he hasn't anticipated a gust attack and used his threads to anchor himself to the ground. The shell of his earth hearts as not quite as lucky and was sent flying away by the gale Kakuzu's target created.

Kakuzu looked at his foe and gave him the best deadpan look he could muster, which was impressive considering the face mask he was wearing.

The suna-nin opened his mouth, to brag most likely, but was quickly silenced by the razor sharp threads of jiongu entered his eyeballs and pierced his brain, killing him. Kakuzu returned the threads to his sleeve and closed his eyes, focusing so that he could expand his chakra and sense if his threads had landed nearby.

It wasn't a problem if he lost them. He could use his chakra overtime to make more threads, and if someone else found the threads they couldn't make any use of them without the complicated sealing ritual the Kakuzu himself used. He did want to find the threads however as it would save him time, and time was money.

After a minute of silent searching Kakuzu concluded that his threads had been sent to far away and that he would not be able to be recover them. It was no real loss and Kakuzu merely decided that he would not allow such an occurance to happen again.

XoXoXoX

Meanwhile, many miles away from where Kakuzu had attacked the bounty hunter, a sealing was taking place. Glowing golden chains were pulling a gigantic demonic fox to an infant held in the arms of his parents. Everything went according to plan for the sealing, unknown to everyone there however, a bundle of gray threads landed on top of the fox they were sealing. The mother and father said their goodbyes to their only son, and died. All the while not knowing that the Nine Tailed Fox was not the only thing sealed into their child.

XoXoXoX

**Don't worry, this isn't the end yet. I just need to end the chapter here so I can do a very convient time skip. Sorry if you felt like I wasn't sappy enough for Naruto's mom and dad during the sealing. If your unhappy about it, go watch the anime and complain about how Tobi is Obito, that always makes me feel better. Also FYI; I will be changing little facts here and there in the story, cause I can.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chaptah 2! In which our protagonist eats dust, learns a truth, and gets stitches, and learns the importance of money.**

**I do not own Naruto.**

XoXoXoX

Naruto didn't have any idea what he did wrong. The old crone that ran the orphanage said that she was 'fed up' with him and grabbed by his arm and threw him out of the orphanage, literally. He was only four! What was he supposed to do now?

He picked himself up and dusted himself off. All he had on him was the clothes on his back, and a poor sense of direction. He decided that being anywhere else was better than hanging out in front of the orphanage on the street, he hated how he was treated there anyways. He picked a direction randomly and started waking.

The civilians on the street noticed Naruto and whenever they saw him they sneered and glared at him. It wasn't long before they started muttering amongst themselves about how the Hokage could let that thing walk outside with regular people.

Naruto didn't know what was going on. All he knew was that the villagers were looking at him and saying things like 'demon', 'shame', and 'kill'. He didn't know why, but the villagers started to scare him and he started walking faster so he could get past them. Then he walked even faster when some of the meaner looking villagers started to follow him. When they started walking faster, he started running. When he started running, the villagers started chasing after him.

Naruto was terrified at this point. He didn't know why, but a mob of people were chasing after him. He did everything he could to get away, but he made a sharp left turn and ended up running into an alleyway with a dead end. He ran to the end of the alley hoping that there was somewhere to hide, but it was to late and one of the members from the mob had caught up with him and had hoisted him up by his shirt and slammed his back into a wall.

Naruto looked into the man's eyes, and all he saw was rage. Pure, unfiltered, wrath, and all of it was directed at Naruto. The man saw how scared Naruto was and grinned wickedly when he set the knife he had on him against the demon's cheek. He was rewarded for his action when the brat gasped and the man saw that Naruto had pissed himself.

The man deemed it necessary to tell the demon why he was gonna do what he was, and he spoke.

"Ya know what brat? I have a kid about your age. She is everything to me, and I love her with all my heart. Just like how I loved her sister. But I can't love my poor Mei anymore. You know why brat?" Naruto shook his head furiously but didn't say anything. The man let his grin out wider and told him. "Because YOU KILLED HER! I held her in my arms as the cuts on her body caused her to bleed out. I looked in her eyes as the light disappeared. This," The man raised his knife and the crowd cheered him on. "is for Mei!"

He put his knife in Naruto's mouth and sliced left. He gave a triumphant roar as Naruto screamed and bled, then he tossed the poor boy behind him to the rest of the mob behind him. Like wolves, they pounced and began the beating.

Naruto, through all of the pain, knew that he needed to protect his head and he curled up into a protective ball. He felt ribs break and felt himself get cut all over by all kinds if blades. Nowhere on his body did he not hurt, even his hands and feet weren't spared as one villager took it upon himself to cut them up.

The beating continued for just under 5 minutes, but to Naruto it felt like an eternity. He would had undoubtedly died, fate was on his side today however. A patrolling ANBU detected the mob and decided that he needed to investigate. He saw Naruto being lynched and took a moment to decide his next course of action.

He felt no love for the demon, but he was under standing orders from the Hokage to protect all of the village's citizens, which unfortunately, included Naruto. The ANBU gave a mental sigh and threw a smoke bomb into the middle of the crowd.

Coughing, the mob backed away from Naruto and saw the ANBU when the smoke cloud dispersed. He waved his hand to the side and said to them "By order of the Hokage, you are to stop your actions and continue on your way. Failure to comply will result in a fine or penalty. Continued resistance will authorize me to use deadly force."

The mob grumbled but recognized that the ANBU was just doing his job and that he held no love for the demon. They promised that they would come back to finish the job one day and walked back to wherever they were when they decided to chase after Naruto. The ANBU turned around to see how Naruto was doing and regarded his condition coldly.

Naruto was still conscious, which was both a good and bad thing. Good in the sense that he could walk away, bad in the sense he was now traumatized. His entire body was a mess of cuts and gashes. There wasn't a single place, except for his groin, where Naruto hadn't been cut. The bleeding didn't seem too bad, but there was still a lot of blood. The worst wound seemed to be Naruto's mouth, where someone had sliced open his cheek in a grim parody of a smirk. The ANBU knew he would reprimanded if the Hokage found out he did nothing to help the boy so he reached into his scroll pouch and unrolled one. He pumped some chakra into the scroll and it's contents appeared in a poof of smoke. When the smoke cleared, there was a very large pile of bandages. He then walked closer to Naruto and lifted the boy to his feet.

Naruto started licking his lips, and started crying when he prodded the side of his mouth. The wound on his mouth was bad, but his throat was worse. One of the villagers had hit him very hard on the throat and whenever Naruto started to talk, it caused him pain. He steeled his resolve and asked the only question he had for his rescuer.

"Why did you help me?"

The ANBU stopped sorting through the pile of combat wraps and decided to tell the boy the complete and utter truth.

"It wasn't because I wanted to." Naruto slumped but then looked up with a curious look in his eyes.

"Then why?"

The ANBU snorted. "The only reason I rescued you was because I was paid to. As a ninja, I'm paid to do all kinds of jobs for the village. With the money I get from the jobs, I can afford to live happily. Sometimes I do jobs I don't like, like rescuing you. But I still do these jobs because of the money I get from them. With money, anything is possible. Now shut up and use these bandages to wrap up everywhere you have cuts. Bind yourself tightly, especially where the cuts are really bad, like your face."

Sad that the only reason he was rescued was because the ANBU was payed to, he reached out and began wrapping himself up. Surprisingly, when he eventually wrapped his face, it was easy for him to breath because the bandages were designed just for ninjas who suffered face wounds that needed to be wrapped up. When Naruto was done, he looked like a mummy, the only part of him not covered was the space around his eyes and his hair.

The ANBU nodded once Naruto was done and began to walk away. Naruto called out to him, "What do I do now?"

The man turned around and looked at the desperate kid. He decided that giving advice wasn't his area of expertise, so he quoted a fortune cookie.

"Survival is paramount, but the only way you can live is by being happy."

The ANBU disappeared in a cloud of smoke and Naruto was left alone where his brain was working overtime trying to decide what had just happened to him in such a short amount of time. The events of the day were too much for him. It was miraculous that he was even conscious up to the point. He crawled to the side of a dumpster, curled up into a ball, and promptly fell asleep.

Unknown to the little blond, all of his cuts, even the shallowest ones, stitched themselves shut.

XoXoXoX

When Naruto awoke, it was the next day and the street outside of the alley he was in was already bustling with foot traffic. He was scared of a crowd of people attacking him again, but he took some deep breaths to calm himself down. He slowly walked out onto the street and towards a large apartment complex he saw in the distance.

The people who saw him gave him curious looks because of all the bandages, but otherwise they didn't do anything. The reason for this was because they only recognized Naruto as being the Kyuubi's container was because of his whisker marks, which were now covered.

Naruto eventually made it to the apartments. Much to his surprise they were abandoned, as were most of the buildings around the apartment. Unknowingly, Naruto had walked into the worst part of the village, ground zero of the Kyuubi attack. He walked around the building and eventually found that it would be the perfect place for him to live. This made him happy because he had originally walked towards the building because it was really tall and he thought he would be able to see a good place t stay for the night, the coincidence of finding a place to sleep made him happy.

He found an apartment with a nice view of the Hokage Monument. It still had a mattress in it and plenty of space for him. Best of all, it's door was slightly hidden so that way the townspeople wouldn't be able to find him as easily. It could've been much worse for him, but instead Naruto had found a place where he could live.

He lay on his mattress face up and began some serious thinking for a four year old. The man in the mask who saved him said that surivival was para-something. Probably meant important. That meant that he needed to find food.

The man also said the only way to live was to be happy. How was Naruto supposed to do that? He was just in a beating yesterday! He would never forget the anger of the mob, and more importantly, their faces. He promised himself that he would one day find these people and find out why they had done such awful things to him.

He pushed that to the back of his mind however as he thought of how he could be happy. He wasn't having any ideas come to mind when it suddenly hit him.

The man had also said that with money, anything was possible! I he could get enough money he could be happy!

Barely able to contain his excitement from his new ideas he vowed he would do whatever he could to become happy, like using loads of money. How was he supposed to get the money though?

Naruto visibly slumped in his new apartment until he remembered another thing he man had said. Something about ninjas making money.

"That's perfect!" He yelled out, so that the whole world could hear him.

He ran to the top of the apartment that overlooked the village. He took in the sight of the entire village around him and took in a deep breath before screaming out, "My names Naruto with no last name and I'm going to become the greatest ninja ever and get loads of money so I can be happy! Believe it!"

XoXoXoX

**Please criticize mercilessly so I can improve please. Want longer chapters? More description? How do you feel about an OC or two? I'm arguing with myself for a NaruHina pairing or a NaruTen pairing. Let me know what you think and don't be afraid to scream your opinion.**


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